Aspirin taken daily ‘cuts bowel cancer death risk’

Bowel cancer patients who take daily aspirin could cut their chance of dying from the disease by about a third, experts believe.

A study in the British Journal of Cancer looked at 4,500 bowel cancer patients living in The Netherlands.

All of the patients on aspirin were taking a low dose – 80mg or less a day – something already recommended for people with heart disease.

But experts say it is too soon to start routinely offering it for bowel cancer.

A wealth of evidence already suggests aspirin might prevent certain cancers from developing in the first place. And more recent work suggests it might also work as a cancer therapy – slowing down or preventing a cancer’s spread.

But the drug can also have unpleasant and dangerous side effects, causing irritation of the stomach lining and internal bleeds in a very small minority of patients.